Cherry Hill, N.J. – He railed against the United States, helped scout out military installations for attack, offered to introduce his comrades to an arms dealer, and gave them a list of weapons he could procure, including machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

These were not the actions of a terrorist, but of a paid FBI informant who helped bring down an alleged plot by six Muslim men to massacre U.S. soldiers at New Jersey’s Fort Dix.

And those actions have raised questions of whether the government crossed the line and pushed the six down a path they would not have otherwise followed.

It is an argument – entrapment – that has been made in other terrorism cases, and one that has failed miserably in this post-Sept. 11 era.

One defense attorney on the case, Troy Archie, said no decision has been made on whether to argue entrapment, but based on the FBI’s own account, “the guys sort of led them on.”

Rocco Cipparone, a lawyer for another of the defendants, said he will take a hard look at “the role of paid informants and how aggressive they were in potentially prodding or moving things along.”

The Fort Dix Six were arrested earlier this week after a 15-month FBI investigation that relied heavily on two paid informants who secretly recorded meetings and telephone conversations in which the suspects talked of killing “in the name of Allah.”

“Really solid” evidence

U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie defended the government’s handling of the case. He and the FBI portrayed the defendants as Muslim fanatics who were nearly ready to strike. They were arrested Monday during what the FBI said was an attempt to buy AK-47 machine guns, M-16s and other weapons.

Former FBI agent Kevin Barrows said prosecutors appeared to have done things right.

“They corroborated with surveillance, and they had a gun buy set up,” Barrows said. “That further solidified the case, as opposed to it just being a tape of somebody saying, ‘Yeah, I want to buy guns.’ They worked this for a long time and the evidence seems really, really solid.”

“I never in my wildest dreams imagined what they’ve been accused of,” said Ismail Badat, trustee of the Islamic Center of South Jersey in Palmyra, where the Duka brothers worshiped.

The same documents that prosecutors used to build a case against the suspects also depict them as somewhat disorganized, lackluster plotters. And clumsy and amateurish, too: The FBI learned of the alleged plot when the men went to a Circuit City store and asked a clerk to transfer a jihad training video of themselves onto a DVD.

Also, they mistakenly thought an AK-47 costs $500, instead of $1,500 to $3,000.

Also, Tatar called a Philadelphia police officer in November, saying he had been approached by someone who was pressuring him to obtain a map of Fort Dix and that he feared the incident was terrorist-related, according to court documents.

“It could be a defense, that he felt he was being pressured to do things and actually called law enforcement to report it,” said Sohail Mohammed, a New Jersey lawyer and Muslim community leader.

Under the law, people cannot be convicted if they were entrapped. But there is no entrapment if a person is willing to break the law and law officers offer to help.

More security for bases

A bill increasing scrutiny of civilians who work at military bases is to be introduced Wed nesday in Congress as part of the Defense Authorization Act.

The measure – proposed by Rep. James Saxton, R-N.J. – would require exhaustive federal background checks of civilian workers. It would also help standardize part of the security measures that protect U.S. military bases across the country.

Such a measure would have kept Tatar off a list of pizza deliverers approved by Fort Dix to come on the post.

The Philadelphia Inquirer contributed to this report.

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